Amazon Prime Instant Video is turning up the heat on its streaming competition with the introduction of two hour-long original drama pilots.

The online retailer's first attempt at original dramas, Bosch and The After, will be available online next year at no additional cost. Users are being asked to watch and provide feedback to help determine which pilots will make it to series, as it did with 8 comedy pilots earlier this year.

Bosch, based on Michael Connelly's best-selling Harry Bosch book series, is a joint project from Emmy-nominated writer Eric Overmyer (Law & Order, Treme) and Connelly. The story follows an LAPD homicide detective in his pursuit of the killer of a teenage boy, while also standing trial in federal court on accusations that he murdered a suspected serial killer.

"Sharing this story with television audiences is very exciting, something that's been 20 years in the making," author Connelly said in a statement.

The title character will be played by Titus Welliver (a.k.a. "The Man In Black" to Lost fans); Annie Wesching, Amy Price-Francis, and Jamie Hector also star. Henrik Bastin of Fabrik Entertainment is producing, and Jim McKay will direct.

"It is amazing to have it come together with the synergy of Amazon  the world's largest bookstore  along with accomplished creator and showrunner, Eric Overmyer, and Fabrick, a product company dedicated to loyalty to the books," Connelly said. "Harry Bosch can be in no better hands."

Alongside the real-life drama of Bosch comes The After  a sci-fi tale about eight strangers thrown together by "mysterious forces," who must help each other survive in "a violent world that defies explanation." Sharon Lawrence, Adrian Pasdar, Jamie Kennedy, and Aldis Hodge lead the show, which was written and directed by Emmy-nominated Chris Carter of The X-Files fame.

If the program sounds cryptic, that's because Carter intends it to be. "I'm very superstitious about talking about what I'm working on before it's finished, and it's more fun if it's kept a mystery" the show creator said in a statement. "So let me just say that this is a show that explores human frailty, possibility, terror, and the triumph of the human spirit. I'm so excited to be telling this story with Amazon in this new frontier of television."

Amazon Studios launched three years ago with the intent of developing feature films and episodic series  much like Netflix has been doing successfully since early 2012. This fall, Amazon will debut its first comedy series, Alpha House and Betas, available exclusively on Prime Instant Video and Amazon LOVEFiLM in the U.K.

"We are very excited to be working with creators like Michael Connelly and Chris Carter, both epic storytellers in their own right," Roy Price, director of Amazon Studios, said in a statement. "For the first time we are bringing Amazon customers hour-long programming and we can't wait to hear what they think of these new stories."

The Web giant also revealed today that season three of TNT's popular Falling Skies series will be available Saturday exclusively on Prime Instant Video for Amazon Prime members. The episodes arrive only three months after originally airing on the cable network; the first two seasons are already available via Prime Instant Video.

Stephanie began as a PCMag reporter in May 2012. She moved to New York City from Frederick, Md., where she worked for four years as a multimedia reporter at the second-largest daily newspaper in Maryland. She interned at Baltimore magazine and graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania (in the town of Indiana, in the state of Pennsylvania) with a degree in journalism and mass communications.
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